MRE's (emergency RV backup food)

[Oldgator73]

Surplus? Why are they buying so much it ends up being "surplus" literally decades before it expires?

Mark B.
Albuquerque, NM

Fraud, waste and abuse in the military is infamous. You ever heard of zero based budgeting. What you don’t spend prior to the end of the fiscal year you have to give back and your budget the next year might suffer. So towards the middle to the end of September every year the government has a little exercise called “end of year spending”. Every unit on every AF base, Army post, Marine and Navy base try to spend their budget down to zero; furniture, toilet paper, MRE’s, office supplies virtually anything Contracting says you are allowed to buy. Hence, surplus “stuff”.

 

[Chef Duane]

Fraud, waste and abuse in the military is infamous. You ever heard of zero based budgeting. What you don’t spend prior to the end of the fiscal year you have to give back and your budget the next year might suffer. So towards the middle to the end of September every year the government has a little exercise called “end of year spending”. Every unit on every AF base, Army post, Marine and Navy base try to spend their budget down to zero; furniture, toilet paper, MRE’s, office supplies virtually anything Contracting says you are allowed to buy. Hence, surplus “stuff”.

Say it ain't so!! I notice you didn't mention the Coast Guard. Yeah, we used OUR money wisely and prudently. No waste in the CG, no sir, no way!!


PS: Can anyone tell me why the Coast Guard would need a fully armed A10?

 

[Oldgator73]

PS: Can anyone tell me why the Coast Guard would need a fully armed A10?

Why would the CG need an unarmed A10?

 

[Wasillaguy]

CG gave us MREs to stock mountaintop comm sites in case contractors got stranded due to weather.
At many sites we would stage gear in a nearby native village, and they always wanted those MREs. Couldn't pay a guy cash to haul your gear with his 4-wheeler once he spotted those MREs.

 

[Edd505]

Say it ain't so!! I notice you didn't mention the Coast Guard. Yeah, we used OUR money wisely and prudently. No waste in the CG, no sir, no way!!


PS: Can anyone tell me why the Coast Guard would need a fully armed A10?View attachment 176109

Drug dealers crossing open waters. ( click pic)

 

[DonTom]

Fraud, waste and abuse in the military is infamous.

Works the same way where I worked for the City & County of San Francisco, except they do the big spending in June as the new fiscal year is July 1.

-Don- Gila Bend, AZ

 

[Chef Duane]

Drug dealers crossing open waters. ( click pic)

That's would have been nice but when I chased them down we didn't have that option.

 

[old RV guy]

Say it ain't so!! I notice you didn't mention the Coast Guard. Yeah, we used OUR money wisely and prudently. No waste in the CG, no sir, no way!!


PS: Can anyone tell me why the Coast Guard would need a fully armed A10?View attachment 176109

Isn't the CG both Homeland Security and a branch of the military? They were doing coastal duty in Vietnam, back then they called airstrikes in to the AF or Navy, I guess they can do it in house now.

 

[Chef Duane]

Isn't the CG both Homeland Security and a branch of the military? They were doing coastal duty in Vietnam, back then they called airstrikes in to the AF or Navy, I guess they can do it in house now.

Yes. The CG has always been a part of the military. It was originally part of the Dept. of Treasury (think fighting off pirates and such) established by Alexander Hamilton as the Revenue Marine Service then the Revenue Cutter Service. When I was in it was Dept. of Transportation and is now part of Homeland Security. During wartimes it operates under the Dept. of the Navy. Most of the small boats (82 footers and below) in VN were crewed by Coast Guardsmen.

 

[dave541]

The military MREs are designed for maximum shelf life with edibility a secondary thought.
MREs can be stored in 150 degree warehouses, deep frozen, blown up, and dropped from airplanes and still be functional for decades. To get that kind of shelf life certain sacrifices had to made in food palatibility.
Each MRE is around 1100 to 1300 calories, depending on menu. 3 per day more or less meets the basic nutritional requirements.
It meets the military's needs.
There are civilian products that are about the same price, taste better, and are better balanced nutritionally. The drawback is the shelf life. They cannot rattle around in the trunk of your car and expect them to still be good three years later.

 

[Oldgator73]

There are civilian products that are about the same price,

You can purchase MRE’s at base commissaries. At Dover they’re about $10-$15. Wouldn’t catch me buying any. Rather have a can of beanie weenies and some Vienna Sausage.

 

[Rene T]

I use to love the spaghetti and pound bread. We use to raid the mess hall during guard duty in Nam

 

[Old_Crow]

Rather have a can of beanie weenies and some Vienna Sausage.

In Arkansas that's pronounced "Vy-any Sausages".

 

[DutchmenSport]

I would not willingly eat MRE’s again. I don’t know about the new version but the meals we were forced to purchase were loaded with vitamins and designed to stop you up so there was minimal latrine time.

We must have been in the same Army!

A few years ago, my adult son, who returned home after a divorce, got on the end-of-the-world survivalist mode. He ordered a bunch of those meals that will store for 75 years or something like that! We (or he) ever tried to eat any of it yet. It's all still in storage under the house, in a separate storage space. I'm still waiting for the apocalypse to happen. At my age now, probably never in my lifetime now!